


Fruitless

by Slant



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Canon Compliant, Existentialism, Gen, journeys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pattertwig's journey is no more inherently meaningless than any other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I'll Take the High Road](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4639248) by [Transposable_Element](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element). 



> Which is a more rewarding story about Pattertwig's journey, set in a more caring, more alive Narnia.
> 
> More specifically, inspired by a comment where they said that they didn't want to write a story where Pattertwig's journey was for nothing. Given my love of the futility of all striving, this story was a pretty much inevitable response.

They called him Pattertwig. That wasn't his name of course- the humanoids (and token human) who ran the rebellion either couldn't or wouldn't pronounce the string of high- pitched chattering that made up his name. He'd arrived, eager and nervous and offered to help; he'd been sent to the dwarfs to register and they'd put down the use-name which Trufflehunter had absentmindedly given him in the rolls. It could be worse; the lad behind him had been abruptly renamed "Nuthunter" and told that it was "appropriately Squirrelly" when he objected. If there was some other approach, like, for example, asking him, giving him five seconds to think about it and then taking his response seriously, it had been lost during the Hidden Years. Maybe if they woke the Trees one of them would remember. More to the point, a ninety-foot twenty-tonne Scots Pine is a lot more likely to get attention when they state that their prefer mode of address is something that can't be done with a human larynx. 

The Mouseguard had responded slightly differently- they had declared an informal but lethal competition to demonstrate the sort of martial prowess that was apparently the only thing that mattered right now. Between the eight of them they had a terrifyingly large number of confirmed kills and an even larger number of assists. It had earnt Reepicheep[1] a begrudged position on the council.

[1] Again, not his real name. 

He was no sort of fighter. Logistics he could do in his head as well as the dwarfs could on their ledgers but what good was that? No one wanted to hear that they needed to lose nine tenths of their communal appetite or they'd starve before next spring. So he scouted- he was fast and quiet and could climb faster than most could run and any Squirrel could memorise the positions of scores of supply caches. Not that their reports were accorded much value; "flighty" the dwarfs said; the larger Beasts weren't much more respectful and the Centaurs had little time for anyone who couldn't or wouldn't track the dance of the stars. The Squirrel everyone called Pattertwig had been enthusiastic about the Prince at the start though, when the human had first come to the Dancing Lawn, and somehow that had translated to marginally more respect for his abilities. Not that a condescending "Pretty reliable, for a Squirrel" was exactly what you wanted to hear from your comrades-in-arms. 

So impressed by his reliability, in fact, that they gave him a mission. The prince and his dwarf told him about it. "Very important," they said. Terribly hush-hush, tell no one, all that. It looked ... well, it looked a lot like suicide. Forty miles, with at least two river-crossings - more if you tried to go east around any of the war camps and were forced to cross the Great River, most of the way directly towards Miraz's castle and the heart of the Telmarine occupation. The objective was ... wow. The objective was pretty much unbelievable. The doctor thought that the trip to the lamp-post might be a waste of time. He didn't say it like that of course, but Trumpkin was sent to the coast (straight through Miraz's war camp - arguably an even less safe trip), and he wasn't sure that the magical help wouldn't come straight to the Howe. If it worked at all. If.


	2. Chapter 2

There is a dynamism to a Squirrel's movement through the treetops that is quite unlike flight. In flight the ground drops away and you see the whole land spread out beneath you. A bird might be travelling faster than a Horse can gallop, but the world seems still and far away. In the trees, the branches compress distance- you can see the one you are on, and the next and no further. Each leap comes on the heels of the one before, each landing requires concentration but can't be allowed to interrupt the flow or break momentum. If it is flight, it is flight through turbulent cloud in a narrow defile while people throw sticks at you. The nearest thing is brachiation, the swinging, grasping under-branch movement of the Gibbons, but Squirrels disdain hanging as an insult to their sense of balance.

It is exhilarating, absorbing and requires absolute focus- you must see not only where the branch is but how it will bend and spring and which ones will snap. Small wonder that Squirrels sometimes don't notice the first time you talk to them- all their awareness is intent on their movement. The one they called Pattertwig had settled into his stride, conscious thought absent while his body ground though endless calculations of exertion and balance and breathing. 

He'd awoken before dawn, choked down a bitter concoction of erzatz acorn grounds made from coffee and had headed out due west. His plan, as much as there was one was to approach the Lantern Waste via a series of West/ North zig-zags through the treetops. Hopefully there were few humans out West. Hopefully, if anyone saw him they would assume he was fleeing the battle. Hopefully, sight-lines from the ground would be short and no one would see him for more than a couple of dozen yards, and again, hopefully, this would not be long enough to get a cloth-yard shaft nocked, drawn and loosed. Although in reality, he was probably in more danger from poachers than soldier-archers. 

It was midmorning, and he heard the horn-call. The horn was winded twenty miles away and should have been blown at dawn. It was sort-of reassuring. That a magical horn could be heard over twenty miles of densely forested land was eerie, even if the sound itself was hope and joy. That someone had apparently conflated "dawn" for "have a nice lie-in and get it done around elevenish" was a reassuringly mundane touch that did a lot to dispel his disquiet. Well, that put one of the "Ifs" to rest - yes this was a magical horn. If it was the legendary Queen Susan's, If help was coming, and If help was coming to the lamp-post still remained. With the sound came awareness of his own aches, and hunger and thirst. He slowed, looked for humans, found a stream, drank, foraged for a bit and set off again at a slightly more sedate pace. It was a long way to the Lantern Waste, and once he got there there was no guarantee that he'd find his targets, or even the lamp-post, quickly. 

Rumour had it that the Waste was haunted, but rumour said that about pretty much everywhere, and he'd been pretty much everywhere, and had never met a ghost. Maybe they didn't like him. Anyway, maybe the ghosts would direct him; it stood to reason that that they'd know where the lamp-post was.

The first river crossing was tense, muddy, bedraggling and ultimately anticlimactic. The second one involved stealing[2] a derelict row-boat, some cursing, splashing back to the bank, stealing some oars[3] and then a great deal more cursing. Rowing was not one of his skills. Eventually he came to the Lantern Waste. There were no ghosts there either. A couple of birds which flew off when he approached, a lot of silence, and scores of square miles of deep, dark, trackless forest. It was getting dark, he was tired, but he could push on for a few hours yet. The lamp would be more visible in the dark, wouldn't it? He ate and drank and searched for a few hours more, criss-crossing the forest slowly, giving himself time to look around, looking for a glow in the canopy or a glint of light through the branches. He gave up around midnight, found a branch high in the trees where he'd be hard to spot from the ground and slept.

[2] "gloriously requisitioning in the name of free Narnia!"  
[3] sized for someone twice his height and eight times his mass. 

He woke with the dawn, which was oddly silent. He blinked at the world with the sort of light headed clarity that comes from not enough sleep; he was ravenous. Fortunately his plan for the day was to search the forest for something and he could look for fruit and nuts and lamp-posts at the same time. 

Breakfast he found over the next hour or so. The lamp-post he found at around noon. There was no one there and no tracks. The lamp itself was a minor wonder, but not a very impressive one, with its black-painted metal, little glass windows and bright cheery flame. Mostly what he wondered at was why anyone would want to make the thing.  
After the first five minutes he began to wonder how long he should wait for. The worst thing would be for magical assistance to answer the call of the Horn, get to the lamp-post and then hang around waiting for directions or head north assuming that they should fight giants or whatever. Equally bad, would be for him to have already missed it- maybe magical help doesn't leave tracks. Other terrible possibilities included him waiting here forever, waiting here while the rebellion failed for the want of a scout, waiting here while Narnia was freed with the aid of magical assistance that came to the Howe and never finding out. He would have to wait until dawn at least, he resolved; the Doctor had said that help would come at dawn.  
Now... could he leave for a bit? Forage? Start some caches? If he was going to over-winter waiting for magical help that never came he should be supplied. Come back in ten minutes? But what if he? she? they? came while he was away? Maybe he could leave a note? He laughed at the absurdity of it, but he couldn't just wait until he starved. This would be his war then, waiting here at the lamp-post. They'd have to send for him when they won. Except they wouldn't; they'd assumed he died when he didn't come back. Did that mean that they'd send someone else? If there were sending someone else he should wait until they got here. Feeling slightly ridiculous, he left the lamp-post to find the nearest water supply, and then came back again. The clearing around the lamp-post was exactly how he had left it. Did that mean that no mystical appertain had occurred in the last five minutes? 

He dithered for another week. He would make up his mind very determinedly to go, and then do nothing, or set off to the south with many backward glances, get out of sight of the lamp-post, or out of ear-shot, or to the edge of the Waste and then run back. In all that time, he saw no one. At the end of the week, the Tree he was sitting in stirred, and once it had woken fully, it told him what news came dancing down the wind, and that was that. They'd won, and he had a stirring tale of, uh, hanging around in the Wastes to show for it.  
As he made his way back to the Howe, he wondered if it would be for the best if Pattertwig had died on the journey and was never seen again and some other Squirrel, say "Longtooth" came back with the tale.


End file.
